"
Give up all further attempts, then, to act the masters; you have
neither character nor capacity for the part. If, however, you would
bring forward your propositions with a little more modesty, they might
obtain a hearing. For, although this phrase, local presence, has
been rejected, as you have seen, by St. Thomas, on the ground that the
body of Jesus Christ is not in the eucharist, in the ordinary
extension of bodies in their places, the expression has, nevertheless,
been adopted by some modern controversial writers, who understand it
simply to mean that the body of Jesus Christ is truly under the
species, which being in a particular place, the body of Jesus Christ
is there also. And in this sense M. Arnauld will make no scruple to
admit the term, as M. de St. Cyran and he have repeatedly declared
that Jesus Christ in the eucharist is truly in a particular place, and
miraculously in many places at the same time. Thus all your subtleties
fall to the ground; and you have failed to give the slightest
semblance of plausibility to an accusation which ought not to have
been allowed to show its face without being supported by the most
unanswerable proofs.
But what avails it, fathers, to oppose their innocence to your
calumnies? You impute these errors to them, not in the belief that
they maintain heresy, but from the idea that they have done you
injury. That is enough, according to your theology, to warrant you
to calumniate them without criminality; and you can, without either
penance or confession, say mass, at the very time that you charge
priests, who say it every day, with holding it to be pure idolatry;
which, were it true, would amount to sacrilege no less revolting
than that of your own Father Jarrige, whom you yourselves ordered to
be hanged in effigy, for having said mass "at the time he was in
agreement with Geneva.
Pages:
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316